The present invention relates generally to method and apparatus for making vaults from a material such as concrete, or the like, and more specifically to method and apparatus for making concrete burial vaults having a horizontal bottomwall and substantially vertical sidewall integrally formed with the bottomwall and extending around the periphery thereof.
Burial vaults are used to shield a casket received therein from direct contact with the surrounding earth or atmosphere and thus tend to preserve the coffin and its contents and also to prevent setting of ground at a grave site. Burial vaults have long been in use in the United States, both in connection with cemetery burial plots and also in connection with mausoleums or the like, wherein caskets are entombed above ground.
Such burial vaults are generally constructed from concrete and have a regular parallelepiped shape, i.e. a rectangular box-like configuration, including a horizontal bottomwall having a rectangular configuration and a vertical sidewall including two longitudinal sidewall portions and two transverse sidewall portions integrally formed with the bottomwall. The sidewall and bottomwall are generally on the order of two inches thick. A vault cover which generally comprises a concrete slab of approximately the same size and shape as the upper peripheral edge surface formed by the sidewall portions is mounted on top of the vault to form a completed vault assembly. The upper peripheral edge of the vault and the vault cover may contain mating surfaces which act to seal the vault and prevent dislodging of the cover.
Until the present invention, the construction of concrete burial vaults was a very time consuming and labor intensive operation. The operation generally consisted of first constructing an inner form having a sidewall and bottomwall configuration identical to the interior surfaces of the sidewall and bottomwall of the vault-to-be-formed. The inner form was then mounted on a pallet or other flat based surface with the bottomwall of the inner form positioned upwardly. An outer form consisting of four sidewalls having a configuration identical to the outer sidewall configuration of a vault-to-be-formed was next assembled around the inner form. It was next necessary to accurately place the outer form with respect to the inner form to ensure that a vault having equal wall thickness on all sides would be provided. The forms are next oiled. It was next conventional to suspend wire mesh or the like into the cavity formed by the inner form and the outer form to provide additional strength to concrete poured into the cavity. The form cavity was next filled with concrete and vibrated to provide proper material distribution throughout the form cavity. The form cavity was filled to a level approximately even with the upper peripheral edge of the outer form and was thereafter screeded or "struck off" to form a relatively smooth surface, even with the top of the outer form. The concrete was thereafter allowed to dry until the concrete was sufficiently strong to allow removal of the forms. First the outer form was stripped off. Next the vault was rotated 180.degree. onto its bottom surface and the inner form was removed. Such an operation generally required the services of 2 laborers. Due to the curing time, etc., for vault formation, it generally took on the order of at least 8 hours from the time form erection began until the time that a vault was completed. Such operations are still standard in the industry today.
It would be generally desirable to provide a machine capable of forming a concrete vault which eliminates many of the labor intensive activities presently used in vault making. It would also be desirable to provide a vault making machine capable of making a concrete vault in substantially less time than presently required by manual techniques. It would further be desirable to provide a vault machine capable of forming a vault of a standard configuration by a process which substantially reduces the costs of manufacture of such vaults. It would further be desirable to provide a vault making machine capable of replacing numerous sets of standard forms.